Oasis of the Heart

by Jessica Hart

  Jasmin was a star, and made sure everyone knew it. Her trademark pout could sell anything, but her temperament was notorious, and Haydn Deane was well aware of what it would cost if she were to walk out on the shoot.

  Jasmin must be placated at all costs, they insisted, so, when Jasmin made no secret of the fact that she despised Cairo quite as much as Cairo loathed her, Cairo just had to hold her tongue, grit her teeth and remember her father's debts.

  Her stomach churned as the plane touched down in Menesset. She was back in the same country as Max. She knew that the chance of seeing him was remote, but still her eyes searched the streets for the familiar jeep as a convoy of taxis took the group into the town. What would she do if she saw him? What could she say?

  Ushering the group into the hotel, she tried to ignore their exclamations of horror at the shabby furnishings and lack of bar.

  'I'm used to five-star hotels,' Jasmin stormed. 'My agent never told me I'd have to put up with cockroaches in the bedrooms! And there's no bathroom in my room!'

  She had reacted in much the same way when she had first come to Menesset, Cairo remembered. That was before she'd met Max, before she'd learnt that there were more important things to care about. 'There are showers at the end of each corridor,' she said, trying to keep her voice even. 'I'm sorry if it's not what you're used to, but I'm afraid this is the best hotel in Menesset. It's only for two nights.'

  When she had quietened them all down, she went into her own room and shut the door gratefully behind her.

  Crossing over to the window, she opened the shutters and stood looking out over the geometric huddle of win- dowless, whitewashed houses with their flat roofs and tiny courtyards.

  An unnatural hush seemed to settle over the town as the light faded rapidly from the sky. Cairo watched a blue-robed figure duck out of a doorway to avoid knocking the huge shesh he wore wrapped around his head, and stride off towards the marketplace. The easy walk reminded her of Max, and the jab of longing was so sharp that she winced and rubbed her hand over her heart as if to soothe it. How long was she going to have to live with this raw sense of need?

  Outside, the stillness seemed to intensify for the instant before a loudspeaker crackled into life near by and the mournful wail of the muezzin began, calling the faithful to prayer. As if at a signal, the silence lifted. Pans clattered, somewhere a dog barked, voices were raised in machine-gun chatter and normal life was resumed.

  Cairo's eyes blurred with tears. How could normal life resume for her when all she wanted was a man who lived alone in the desert, a man with cool eyes and a touch that set her heart racing?

  There was chaos the next morning when the vehicles arrived. It was immediately obvious that they could not all squeeze into the two cars that she had ordered, and the group stood around complaining about their rooms while Cairo embarked on a tortured conversation with the drivers to find out whether they could get hold of a third car. She had to struggle to make sense of their fractured French, and after a while Jasmin heaved an ostentatious sigh.

  'This is obviously going to take all morning,' she said scathingly. 'I thought all this had been arranged in advance?' I made the arrangements before another four people were added to the original list,' Cairo pointed out through clenched teeth.

  'If you'd known anything about the business, you'd have guessed that the numbers would change,' Jasmin said with a shrug. 'I've no intention of hanging around while you sort this out. I'm going for a walk.' She strolled off, patently enjoying all the attention her dramatic looks always created.

  Cairo pressed her lips together, counted to ten and turned back to the drivers.

  She had just managed to establish that there was indeed a third car available, when Jasmin reappeared. Cairo had her back to her, and didn't see her at first until the drivers' look of blatant admiration made her turn round.

  Max was standing there, with Jasmin hanging on his arm.

  Cairo felt as if she'd been hit by a sledgehammer. Her heart seemed to stop, and then jolt into frantic life while she struggled for breath, and she clutched the clipboard to her chest like a lifeline.

  He looked exactly the same. The same cool, guarded expression, the same air of coiled strength. Cairo couldn't take her eyes off him. She seethed with conflicting emotions: shock, incredulous joy, and a burning resentment that he could stand there and look as if he hardly recognised her.

  Jasmin seemed to be talking from a great distance, but these was no mistaking the smug look on her face. 'It's all right, darling,' she said patronisingly to Cairo. 'You can stop panicking about another car. I've found a gallant knight to rescue us from our dilemma.' She cast a sultry look up at Max. A muscle was beating steadily in his cheek. 'I met Max here in the market and told him what a disastrous time we're having, and he's very kindly going to give us a lift in his car.'

  She looked around expectantly, evidently waiting for lavish protestations of gratitude. With a superhuman effort, Cairo pulled herself together.

  'There's really no need,' she began. Her voice sounded stiff and high, and Max interrupted her smoothly.

  'It's no trouble,' he said. He smiled deliberately down at Jasmin and then looked directly at Cairo. He remembered her all right. 'In fact, it'll be a pleasure.'

  Cairo's green eyes blazed murder. How dared he? How dared he stand there in front of her and fawn over Jasmin like that? She had never seen him look so fatuous. Look " at him, lapping it up! Jealousy clawed so tightly at her heart that she could hardly speak, and Jasmin's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the unguarded expression on her face.

  'What do you mean, there's no need?' she asked sharply. 'I'm not squeezing into two cars with everyone else, and that's that! Since you haven't been able to make the proper arrangements, we really don't have any option but to take Max up on his kind offer.'

  Cairo had herself under better control now. 'I've just arranged for a third car,'

  she said frigidly, 'so there'll be plenty of room for everybody. We don't need to bother Mr Falconer.'

  'Let me give you a lift anyway, Jasmin,' Max suggested. 'That'll give everyone else more room, and me the pleasure of your company.' He glanced at Cairo. 'I know the way.'

  Cairo's fingers tightened round her clipboard and Jasmin preened herself at another easy conquest. 'That would be lovely,' she purred. 'Since this godforsaken place doesn't have a bar, why don't we go and have a coffee while Cairo sorts everything out? It seems to have been an absolute shambles so far.'

  She bore Max off into the hotel, leaving Cairo shaking with fury, frustration and searing jealousy. Max, of all people, to be taken in by those obvious, overblown looks!

  So much for all his pontification about the desert and not being concerned with appearances!

  Unable to bear the prospect of watching Max drool all over Jasmin, she refusal to join the others in the cool, and insisted on waiting outside in the pounding heat until the third car arrived. When it eventually turned up, she steeled herself to go inside and get everybody organised.

  'I think we're ready to go,' she announced with a brittle smile.

  'You all set off, darlings,' drawled Jasmin. 'We'll be along as soon as we can.

  Max has decided that his jeep isn't good enough for me, so he's going to borrow one with air-conditioning.'

  'How touching,' said Cairo between her teeth.

  'I don't like the thought of Jasmin getting covered in dust,' Max explained gravely, and she glared at him. It was all right for her to get hot and dirty in his rotten jeep!

  'I hope you're good at digging,' she said to Jasmin. 'He's got a nasty habit of driving into soft sand.'

  Jasmin gave a complacent smile and ran her finger down Max's forearm in a way that made Cairo break out in a cold sweat of sheer hatred. 'Max seems like the kind of man who can deal with things by himself,' she purred.

  'I wouldn't dream of asking Jasmin to touch a shovel,' said Max, meeting Cairo's angry green eyes blandly. 'You mustn't worry about your star. I'll
look after her.'

  'Well, don't be late,' she said curtly, hardly trusting herself to speak. 'There's a lot of money riding on this one day's shooting, and we won't be able to do anything until Jasmin gets there.' Unable to bear the sight of them together any longer, she turned on her heel and walked out before Jasmin had a chance to start throwing her perfect weight around.

  As it was, they had to wait forty minutes before Max and Jasmin finally rolled up at the location, and everyone was fretful while they waited for her to arrive. As soon as she appeared, she was whisked off to be made up in one of the tent*; Cairo had arranged to have set up for some shade.

  She was furious to see that Max had gone to the trouble of borrowing a brand-new Range Rover to transport Jasmin in style. No rickety jeep or clouds of dust for her! Sick with misery, Cairo retreated to the shade and sat on a rock, hugging her arms around her as if she was cold. Max found her there as Jasmin posed on the tops of the dunes and between the rocks.

  'I hope you're pleased with this farce you've set up?' he said. 'I suppose you prefer the desert with all these people carrying on as if the world begins and ends on celluloid?'

  'Not as much as you seem to,' Cairo snapped. 'Jasmin seems to have made quite a conquest! I must say, I'm surprised at you. I'd have thought you'd have gone for the goody-two-shoes, apple-cheeked, squeaky-clean type.'

  Max looked down at her, and, although he didn't smile, she had the infuriating feeling that he was amused. 'No,' he said. 'That's not my type at all.'

  'Obviously not!' Cairo glared over to where Jasmin was going through her paces in front of the camera. 'It didn't take much to bowl you over, did it?

  After all you've had to say about women, you go and fall for someone as obvious as Jasmin. You're just as much a fool as everyone else you're usually busy feeling so superior about. If it wasn't so sad, I'd laugh!'

  'Who said I'd fallen for Jasmin?' asked Max blandly.

  'You made it pretty obvious.' Cairo mimicked Jasmin's husky drawl. '"I've found a gallant knight. Max has decided that his jeep isn't good enough for me". You were lapping it up!'

  Max pretended to consider. 'I wouldn't say that.'

  'You probably wouldn't, but, for someone who supposedly finds rocks such good company, you were absolutely riveted by her!'

  'She's a very beautiful girl,' said Max, as if that explained everything, and Cairo's eyes flashed green fire.

  'If you like that cloying, overblown look and the temperament of an egotistical monster!'

  Max tipped back his hat and regarded her thoughtfully. 'You aren't jealous, by any chance, are you, Cairo?'

  'Jealous?' Cairo jumped up from her rock, managing to achieve a creditable laugh. 'You're welcome to each other!'

  'Then aren't you being a little dog-in-the-manger?'

  'Jasmin's not interested in you,' she said bitterly. 'She's only interested in herself. She's the type that always has to have a man to hang on to. It doesn't matter who it is. She only picked you up because she thought you could do something for her, and then when she saw that I—' She broke off, appalled.

  She had so nearly said 'That I was in love with you.'

  Cairo was convinced it was true. Jasmin had read the truth in her face, and, being Jasmin, had decided to put a spoke in her wheel. If Max was going to be in love with anyone, it would be with her. She needn't have bothered, Cairo thought drearily. A dilapidated jeep with the dust blowing in her face had been good enough for her.

  'That you what?' Max prompted.

  'That I knew you,' she amended quickly. 'Don't get too pleased with yourself.

  You're just a trophy as far as Jasmin's concerned, but she still won't like you so much as looking at another woman while she's around.' She glanced at Jasmin, who was sending dagger looks in their direction. 'In fact, she's not looking at all pleased now. You'd better run along and pant at her feet. She'll want you where she can keep an eye on you, and I don't want to be responsible for spoiling such a beautiful relationship!'

  Proud of her self-control, Cairo got up and stalked away towards the tents, but she couldn't resist looking later to see where Max was. There was no sign of him anywhere near Jasmin, who was having her hair sprayed and looking bad-tempered.

  Everyone was wilting under the heat, but there was only one more outfit to go. Cairo prowled restlessly around the tents until, bored by the vacuous chatter of the make-up girl, she escaped out to the rocks to put them all behind her. Once away from it all, it was possible to believe that she was alone and that everything was as before. She would wait for Max to appear, and there would be just the two of them here.

  Cairo was so wrapped up in her dream that when she heard the sound of someone moving beyond a rocky outcrop, her steps took her over there without thinking. Max was crouched down beside a dramatically layered rock wall, scribbling in a small notebook. Beneath the battered old hat, his head was bent, so she couldn't see his face, but she let her eyes linger on the clean, decisive lines of his body, allowed herself the luxury of remembering how it had felt against hers.

  Max looked up without warning, as if the memory had shouted out to him, his light eyes as startling as ever and suddenly intent. Cairo had no chance to wipe the yearning from her face, and as her eyes met his across the stony ground something blazed into life between them.

  'Cairo?' Max stepped towards her, and her heart began to pound with a wild, incredulous hope that died as Jasmin's voice behind her cut through the shimmering tension in the air.

  'I've been looking for you both everywhere!' The husky drawl had sharpened with suspicion even thou; Max and Cairo were nowhere near each other.

  'Did you hear me calling?'Cairo moistened her lips and wrenched her eyes away from Max. 'No.'

  'You must be deaf as well as incompetent!' Jasmin jerked her head in the direction of the shoot. 'We've finished now, so you'd better go and get things organised so we can leave this hell-hole as soon as possible. You're here to do a job, not moon around, and if you want to get paid you'd better start being a bit more efficient than you've been so far. That flea-pit you booked is the worst hotel I've ever stayed in, and we wasted far too much time this morning because you hadn't arranged enough transport.' She threw an alluring look at Max, whose face was carefully expressionless. 'If it hadn't been for Max, I'd have had to squeeze in with everyone else.'

  'I don't suppose it would have killed you,' said Cairo wearily, and Jasmin's face hardened.

  'I've got a lot of influence with Haydn Deane, and if you're not very careful I'm going to tell them how sullen and uncooperative you've been. If I object, they won't give your pathetic consultancy any more work, and I know that you of all people can't afford to be out of a job.' She paused meaningfully and gave a cruel smile. 'I'd do all I could to keep my consultancy, if I were you, Cairo. With a name like Kingswood, finding a position of trust must be rather difficult nowadays.'

  Cairo turned on her heel and walked away. She was shaking. Clearly, Jasmin knew everything about her father, and would enjoy making sure that Max knew too. Cairo's heart seethed with misery and rebellion. She longed to-tell Jasmin exactly what she thought of her, but the model's words had been no less than the truth. She did have to keep the consultancy going if she wanted any chance at all of paying off those debts, and that meant doing exactly what Jasmin said.

  Somehow she got everyone back to Menesset. They were hot and tired, and complained the whole way about the location. Cairo clenched her fists, and tried not to think about what Max and Jasmin were doing in the car which had fallen behind.

  'We probably won't see Jasmin until tomorrow morning now,' said the photographer gloomily, echoing her thoughts. 'You know what she's like once she gets her claws into a man. If she misses the flight, Cairo, you'll have to bring her back with you.'

  Cairo had planned to fly back the following afternoon, to give her time to pay all the bills and make sure that she had thanked everyone who had helped her. She had been looking forward to a solitary flight, and
she didn't think she could bear to sit next to Jasmin, especially not knowing that she had spent the night with Max.

  Her heart felt like a cold, heavy stone in her breast, but the weight on it lifted slightly when the Range Rover stopped outside the hotel. Cairo was standing talking to the manager in the dark entrance hall, and she saw Jasmin get out of the car and go round to Max's window. She looked away, unwilling to witness the lingering goodbye kiss that was undoubtedly going on. The sound of the car driving away was one of the sweetest things she had ever heard. At least Jasmin wasn't spending the night with him.

  Jasmin, in fact, was looking rather brittle as she came into the hall, and her eyes narrowed as she saw Cairo. 'I told Max about your father's disgrace,'

  she said spitefully, 'and he looked absolutely appalled. I was amazed he hadn't heard. It's not as if there wasn't enough coverage at the time.'

  'No,' said Cairo in a low voice, remembering just what that coverage had meant to her and her father.

  'I think he was surprised you hadn't told him,' Jasmin went on inexorably.

  'There really isn't any point in trying to hide a scandal like that, you know, Cairo. It will always come out.'

  'It will as long as there are people like you around,' Cairo agreed quietly.

  Jasmin shook back her long, glorious black hair. 'I don't know what I'd have done without him today! I said I was sure you'd want to thank him tomorrow, but he said he had to go off somewhere now, so there isn't any point in you looking for him.'

  'I'm sure you've thanked him more than adequately,' Cairo said evenly, and turned deliberately back to the manager. Her eyes were glassy, but she wouldn't give Jasmin the satisfaction of knowing how much she had hurt her.

  Max's message was clear enough. He didn't want to see her again, and now she wouldn't even have the chance to say goodbye.